This is a book that lives up to its title. If you're reading this review with no idea what UX means (short for User Experience), this book is for you. If you're already a UX convert, this book is f...

Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to Your Library

Service blueprinting is a method for designing, assessing, and improving services. This article provides a practical overview of the service blueprinting process for library technology services. We...

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Service Blueprinting: A Method for Assessing Library Technologies within an Interconnected Service Ecosystem

User experience studies in libraries have burgeoned over the last decade, driven by assessment needs as well as a broader interest in user experience in libraries. These studies have often focused ...

Library Service Design: A LITA Guide to Holistic Assessment, Insight, and Improvement

The rapid development of ICT has led to the transformation of maps from printed paper to virtual digital publishing and three-dimensional mapping. This allows speculation to be replaced with certainty and accuracy in maps. This also allows maps to function as participatory platforms with the capacity to collect, create, store and process data through people’s interaction with other individuals, the environment and cities. This has significantly changed the way that key stakeholders interact with each other through mapping and raised fundamental ontological and epistemological questions about the nature of maps and mapping. This paper reviews literature in critical cartography and map examples to see how recent technological developments relate to mapmaking. The current practice and thinking in cartography has been challenged, as cartography is traditionally considered the core mapmaking profession. When maps start to function as participatory platforms and become democratized, cartography seems to become obsolete. In light of this, we suggest that maps become the objects of service design. In this role, service designers consider maps as services and take a user-centred approach to facilitate the engagement of key stakeholders in complex systems. The key contribution of this paper lies in the fact that it initiates a discussion of the potential of service design in developing digital platforms, smart cities and public services through mapping. It suggests that future studies could contextualize the involvement of service design in this new territory and investigates its implications and limitations.

The Map As An Object of Service Design

Incorporating Critically Conscious Assessment into a Large Scale Information Literacy Program

Objective: The objective of this article is to illustrate the application of service blueprinting—a design tool that comes from the service design tradition—for assessing and improving library technology services. Setting: A mid-sized library at a public university in the western United States. Methods: A service blueprint was co-created by library and IT staff in a design workshop in order to map the operational flow of a data visualization display wall. Results: Guided by the service blueprint, the project team identified points of improvement for the service of the data visualization display wall, and developed recommendations to aid further applications of service blueprinting. Conclusions: Ultimately, service blueprinting was found to be a useful tool that can be applied to assess and improve library technology services. Correspondence: Scott W. H. Young: swyoung@montana.edu

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Assessing and Improving Library Technology with Service Blueprinting

Introduction Assessment practices provide essential data for informing evidence-based decision-making in libraries. In an effort to better understand library user communities and to assess library services from the perspective of specific groups, the user-centered methodology of participatory design offers a promising path forward. Participatory design is a socially active, values-driven approach to co-creation that seeks to give voice to those who have been traditionally unheard. This paper describes a parallel participatory design process undertaken by Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and Montana State University (MSU). Each project team facilitated a series of 10 workshops with student participants from distinct populations: PSU worked with first-generation students; MSU worked with Native American students. In this paper, we present a brief background of participatory design, case study overviews, and recommendations for practicing participatory assessment.

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Assessing and Improving the Experience of Underrepresented Populations: A Participatory Design Approach

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David Swedman

Papers

Service Blueprinting: A Method for Assessing Library Technologies within an Interconnected Service Ecosystem

Assessing and Improving Library Technology with Service Blueprinting

Assessing and Improving the Experience of Underrepresented Populations: A Participatory Design Approach

Meta-Assessment: The ARL Assessment Framework in Practice at Montana State University